The Mommy Proposal

by Cathy Gillen Thacker

  Decision made, he started toward the front door. Only to have Brooke open it and slip through, certified letter in hand.

  “What’s going on?” he asked in concern.

  “Professor Rylander wanted to let me know that the book party was canceled.”

  “How come?” Cole walked in to join them.

  Landry was still outside, sitting on the back patio. Brooke hesitated.

  Cole’s glance fell to the publisher’s logo on the envelope in her hand. And suddenly, Nate realized, the do-or-die moment Brooke had been dreading was upon them.

  IT WAS NOW OR NEVER, Brooke thought. Yet even as she opened her mouth to explain to Cole what was going on, she was torn with indecision. Should she destroy what little illusion her son had left? Or continue covering for Seamus to protect Cole, and wait until her son was much older to let him know the whole story? She had only seconds to decide. And in the end, she knew what she had to do.

  Brooke looked her son in the eye and stuck to the facts she felt she could reveal to him at this time. “The publisher has decided not to go ahead with your father’s last book.”

  Cole’s brow furrowed in confusion. “How come?”

  Her chest tightened. She knew what Nate would want her to do here. She knew he wouldn’t respect her if she didn’t come clean. But she wouldn’t live up to his high standard of parenting. She still couldn’t adhere to—or even agree with—his standard of parenting. “I’m not sure,” Brooke fibbed finally. “But the publisher also told the university of their decision, so the party in your dad’s honor has been canceled, too.”

  Cole’s face crumpled. “This doesn’t make sense!” he cried. “People love all that mushy stuff.”

  Brooke recalled taking Cole to a book signing when he was six. Seamus had been surrounded by fawning women and students who idolized him. But that had been when Seamus still had a seductively cheery outlook on life. “Well, that was part of the problem, honey. This new collection of poems was very dark, and there just…” She swallowed, aware she was about to tell an even bigger fib. “There isn’t a market for it. Not the kind that’s needed.”

  “Well, at least we’ve got the advance copy,” Cole said. “In case we want to look at it someday.”

  Actually, Brooke thought, they didn’t, as she had given that to the intellectual-property lawyer she’d hired to represent their interests. Unable to tell Cole any of that right now, however, she changed the subject to a matter even more pressing. “How’s Landry?”

  Cole’s expression darkened. “Bummed.”

  Her heart swelled. “Can we do anything for him?” she asked.

  Her son shook his head and averted his gaze to the backyard, where Landry was still hanging out, alone. “I think we’re going to walk down to the park for a while, if it’s okay.”

  Brooke looked at Nate for a decision.

  He shrugged, then turned back to Cole. “Okay by me, if it’ll help. You got your cell phone?”

  Cole patted his pocket.

  “Call if you need anything,” Brooke advised.

  “Okay.” Cole went back outside, spoke to Landry. The taller teen stood, and together they headed out the back gate.

  Feeling as if she had dodged yet another bullet, Brooke let out a long, slow breath. “What didn’t you tell Cole?” Nate asked.

  The simple question evoked a flood of guilt. Not trusting herself to speak, she handed over the letter.

  Nate read it for himself. “…due to the fact that it cannot be established that Seamus Mitchell is the sole author and owner of this Work…and is at risk of legal claim, suit and/or action…Publisher is giving notice of its intention to cancel publication of the work. All advance monies paid to the Author’s Estate are to be returned to the Publisher, within six months of this notification…as per the terms of the contract….” He put down the letter. “Is Iris Lomax going to sue?”

  “So far all she has done is threaten. She’s met with the university and their intellectual-property lawyers. And while they can’t prove Seamus authored any of the poetry, even partially, any more than I can, they don’t feel she has produced enough evidence of her own to actually prevail in civil court.” Brooke sighed. “But just the publicity of the claim would be devastating to all concerned. Hence, the publisher’s and the university’s immediate move to permanently distance themselves from Seamus and anything he may or may not have done.”

  “Even so…” Nate shook his head, clearly worried. “You have to let Cole know what’s going on.”

  As if it were only that easy, Brooke thought bitterly, wishing she could have depended on Nate to support her in this very important regard. She threw up her arms in frustration. “I can’t tell Cole his father is suspected of plagiarizing the work of a young woman he was having an affair with!”

  Nate challenged her with the lift of his brow. “Better to let him find out some other way?”

  The sarcasm stung. “I’ll talk to my lawyer, have him come to some kind of settlement with Iris Lomax to keep her quiet.”

  Nate gave her a long look, his expression grave. “We have to be realistic here. Too many people know about it now for it to stay quiet indefinitely. If the Dallas or Fort Worth papers, or even faculty at one of the competing universities in the area learn of this, the news will be public. You can’t let Cole find out that way. You owe it to him to be honest with him.”

  Brooke knew they were at a turning point. Nate would either understand her point of view or he wouldn’t. “My goal here is to protect him. To keep Cole from becoming disenchanted.”

  Nate shook his head in silent censure. “By lying to him, directly and by omission.”

  Brooke’s knees felt as shaky as her moral center. “Whose side are you on?” she cried, upset. “Yours.”

  She regarded Nate stonily, feeling as if her heart were encased in a block of ice. “It doesn’t sound that way.”

  Nate picked up the paper and waved it impatiently. “If Cole finds out any of this, and realizes you knew and didn’t tell him, he is going to be completely devastated. He’s going to question whether or not he can ever trust you again.”

  Nate wasn’t telling her anything she hadn’t already thought about—many times. Brooke knew this had the potential to destroy her relationship with her son. She didn’t need Nate questioning her beliefs, making her doubt herself, the same way Seamus had done, time and time again. “I don’t see that it helped Landry to know the truth,” she countered, resolute.

  Nate’s eyes turned grim. “If you’re referencing the DNA test—”

  Brooke’s lower lip trembled as she forced herself to assert, “Landry would have been better off if you had just denied that it was possible you could be his father.”

  Nate braced his hands on his waist. “I didn’t have a choice once he saw that photo and realized that his mother was still engaged to me eight months before he was born.”

  Brooke lifted her chin. “You could have made something up, or… I don’t know…”

  Nate’s jaw clenched. “I couldn’t do that to him.”

  “He’s suffering.”

  “We both are,” Nate declared flatly. “But we’ll get over it, because we dealt with each other and the situation honestly.”

  Brooke had never considered Nate a cockeyed optimist, until now. “And if you don’t? If Landry remains distraught and confused…then what?”

  “We’ll figure out a way to make things better.”

  Silence fell between them, every bit as devastating as their words.

  Brooke held up a hand. “I can’t talk about this anymore.”

  He clamped a hand on her shoulder. “We have to.”

  She shrugged free, feeling as if her heart was breaking. “This is my decision to make, Nate,” she reminded him, hanging on to her composure by a thread. “Your only job as my friend—” and lover “—is to back off and support whatever I decide.”

  “Listen to me, Brooke. I know what it is to be so devastated by ju
st the thought of betrayal that you can’t deal, because I did that with Seraphina. But burying your head in the sand and pretending a situation doesn’t exist doesn’t help anything. It only makes things worse.” He looked her square in the eye. “As painful as it is, you have to start facing reality here and help Cole deal with his father’s frailties.”

  Her spirits sank even lower. “That sounds like an ultimatum.”

  Nate stared at her, a force not to be denied. “I can’t just stand by and do nothing while you put yourself and Cole in harm’s way.”

  Brooke braced herself for the worst, even as she stipulated angrily, “You can’t tell Cole, either.”

  Nate exhaled in displeasure. “I wouldn’t have to. Your son is a smart kid. As time goes on, he’ll figure it all out. And like I said…if it comes to that, he’ll never trust you again.”

  Brooke’s lower lip trembled. “You’re supposed to back me up!”

  But to her dismay, he refused. He moved toward her, his arms held out beseechingly. “If we’re going to have a relationship that endures, we have to be able to talk about things and work them out, even when we disagree.”

  Brooke evaded his embrace and stalked past him. “What you really mean is that I have to do things your way.” She whirled around to face him once again. “I’ve already been in a marriage like that. Where my husband belittled my opinions and made all the major decisions for us, and I had no choice but to follow. I won’t do that again, either.”

  Nate rocked back on his heels. “You’re deliberately misinterpreting.”

  She stomped closer. “And you’re deliberately underplaying the significance of this argument! I can’t be with someone who won’t do everything in his power to protect my son.”

  Nate looked even more irritated. “And I can’t be with someone who would willingly lie to her son, or mine.”

  There it was, the ultimatum she had been expecting all along. The one that told her…once again…she just wasn’t good enough to hold the love and attention of the man she wanted.

  Brooke worked to keep her emotions under wraps. “So it’s over?” she asked with icy control.

  Nate shrugged, no longer the hot-blooded lover she desired and once again the accomplished CEO who always walked off alone. “It has to be,” he told her, in that crisp businesslike voice she knew so well. He exhaled in silent censure, shook his head, then once again met her eyes. “Thank God we didn’t tell the kids there was ever anything going on in the first place.”

  Bitterness welled inside her. Brooke looked at Nate, feeling more disillusioned than ever before. “I can’t argue with that.”

  Refusing to cry in front of him, she rushed toward the front door. “I’m going to go check on the boys.” Once past Nate, she practically sprinted down the block.

  He was right behind her, his long strides eating up the sidewalk. Brooke rushed on. She got to the small two-acre park in the middle of her subdivision. Two toddlers were playing on the swings with their mothers. A group of boys was playing pickup basketball. There was no sign of Cole or Landry.

  Nate caught up with her, his strides as unhurried as hers had been rushed. Hands clamped on his waist, pushing back the edges of his suit coat, he gazed around. “Is this where they’re supposed to be?” he growled in frustration.

  Brooke nodded, scanning the area, to no avail.

  “Anywhere else they might have gone?”

  Beginning to feel a little panicky, Brooke forced herself to concentrate. “I don’t know. You ask the boys and I’ll ask the two moms.”

  Nate and Brooke went their separate ways. When they returned to each other, her news was bad. Judging by the grim expression on Nate’s face, so was his. “They were here, but they didn’t play ball,” he reported. “They went down to the corner and hopped on a city bus instead.”

  NATE DIALED LANDRY’S mobile-phone number. Brooke dialed Cole’s. Neither answered. Frantic, Brooke checked her cell-phone messages, while Nate walked off to do the same.

  She had one from the IP attorney, asking her to call. Apparently he’d heard about the book cancellation and the university’s position, too. The second was an emotional entreaty from Cole. “You have to stop treating me like a kid, Mom, and start telling me what’s really going on! ’Cause until you do—” his voice broke slightly before becoming defiant once again “—I’m not coming home!” Click.

  Nate walked back toward Brooke. Trembling, she handed him her phone and had him listen to Cole’s message.

  He handed her his.

  Landry’s disconsolate voice sounded in her ear. “Look, Nate, I know you’re trying to do the right thing here. You always do the right thing. But the truth is I’m not your kid. And that has to matter a lot more than you say. I know it does. So…you’re off the hook,” Landry choked out. “I’m outta here.” Click.

  “I can’t believe this.” Heart pounding, Brooke clutched the cell phone. “They’ve run away.”

  Nate put his emotions aside and focused on the problem. “They can’t have gotten very far.”

  Maybe not, but… Brooke swallowed as a hundred horror stories crossed her mind. “You don’t have to get very far from home for something bad to happen, Nate.”

  He grimaced and wrapped a reassuring arm around her shoulders. Determination lit his eyes. “We’ll find them.”

  Brooke only wished she felt as sure. “How?” she asked, once again on the verge of breaking down.

  Nate tightened his grip on her protectively before releasing her altogether. Heading back toward her house, he said, “Those phones I gave them are equipped with GPS. I didn’t activate the feature. I didn’t think we’d need to, but I’m sure as soon as the service provider turns it on, we’ll know exactly where they are. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to go over to one of the stores in person to get that done.”

  At least they had a plan. Brooke was prepared to do her part, too. She pulled herself together, as she too raced toward her home, where their vehicles were parked. “While you do that, I’m going to start driving around the neighborhood, looking for them.”

  “Call me if you find them,” he said, as he climbed into his Jaguar.

  “I will,” Brooke promised, before running inside to get her purse and car keys. “And you do the same.”

  Brooke checked out all Cole’s favorite haunts. The burger place a mile and a half from home. The video store and the park. The strip mall and, farther away, the bigger retail shopping mall where they had gone to get clothes and haircuts.

  While she searched, she called Cole on his cell phone every five or ten minutes, leaving another message, pleading with him to let her know where he was so they could talk this over. She also called a few of his close school friends. No one had heard from him.

  As for Landry… He had no one she knew of to turn to…except… And suddenly, Brooke knew. She picked up her phone and dialed again. And found the answer she had been looking for.

  NATE AND BROOKE MET UP in the parking lot of the retirement center. “Thank God they’re safe,” she said, aware she had never been happier to see him or be with him in her life. She needed Nate’s love and support, and right now, even though she supposed they were still technically broken up, she could feel both exuding from him in waves.

  Nate again wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders.

  Once again, Brooke noted, almost by default they were parenting their two boys together. But was it anything more than that? Could it ever be again? She didn’t know the answer. The inscrutable expression on his handsome face gave her no clue. “Do any of them know that we’re aware the boys are here?” Nate asked quietly.

  Hoping the two of them still had a chance to make things right with each other, as well as their two sons, Brooke relinquished control and leaned on Nate’s strength. “I asked the staff not to say anything to the boys or Jessalyn, just to keep them here until we arrived.”

  As they neared the entrance to the building, Nate dropped his arm and moved away f
rom her. “Guess we should have come here first,” he murmured, the brooding, serious CEO look back on his face.

  Brooke’s shoulders slumped. “Guess we should have done a lot of things.” Treated Cole like the grown-up he was turning into, let him in on the problems, no matter how painful the process.

  Without warning, Nate reached over and clasped her hand, one friend to another. He looked her in the eye. “We’ll get through this.”

  With him by her side, Brooke felt they just might.

  They walked into the center, signed in at the reception desk and then headed back to Jessalyn’s private suite, where the boys were holding court with Landry’s great-grandmother.

  As Brooke and Nate walked in, both boys started guiltily, then just as quickly turned defiant. Cole clamped his arms across his chest and thrust his chin out stubbornly. “I’m not going home until you tell me the truth.”

  Jessalyn reached for her cane. “Perhaps I should let you-all talk alone,” she said.

  Landry held on to her arm. “No, Gran. Stay.”

  “He’s right,” Nate told her kindly. “You’re family. And this is a family matter.”

  “I told Landry and Cole both they should not have run away,” Jessalyn said, pausing to give her teenage callers a stern look. “As difficult as it can sometimes be, there are better ways to make a point.”

  “And the point of all this, for me, anyway—” Landry locked eyes with Nate “—is I am not your kid.”

  THIS WAS IT, Nate thought. His big chance to step up to the plate and figure out how to be the kind of father Landry deserved. There was no time to lean on Brooke to help bail him out, or to go to the guys for advice. It was his chance to be there emotionally for his kid—the way his parents had never been for him. And Landry was his kid. Nate had never been more sure of that. The question was how to convey it to him, to make him believe….

  Nate pulled up a chair and sank into it so he and Landry were sitting face-to-face.

  It was time, Nate thought, to dig deep—deeper than he had ever gone before—and speak straight from his gut. Because he was never going to get in the game the way he wanted to be, if he didn’t risk his whole heart.